Nice to see not everyone in the entertainment world is an unhinged Anti-American Liberal. Paul Stanley of the rock group “Kiss” made several jabs at Colin Kaepernick during a concert in Massachusetts over the weekend.

As he led the crowd in their version of the “Star Spangled Banner,” the singer from Kiss criticized the former failed San Francisco 49ers quarterback who basically lost his career for being Anti-American, and just plainly, a poor ballplayer.

The best part is that this singer made all these jabs at him without even mentioning the ungrateful ball tosser’s name, which makes it even better because he needs no more publicity.

Stanley went on to say, “In case you didn’t know this tour is called the ‘Freedom to Rock Tour, A lot of times people that are born free think that freedom is free and it’s not.” He later added, “The only reason freedom is free is because there are people willing to sacrifice to keep us free.” Amen, Amen!

To witness the death of the multibillion-dollar National Football League, you don’t need to see sportswriters wringing their hands over the moral dilemma of covering America’s Roman circus of brain trauma.

And you don’t need to watch multimillionaire football stars, pampered for most of their lives, ostentatiously disrespecting the national anthem, kneeling, their raised fists in the air.

You don’t need to see the desperation in the NFL’s television commercials: actresses in team gear, holding snack trays to feed their (virtual) extended team-gear-wearing families, as the NFL begs middle-class women to mother their game before it dies.

You don’t have to do any of that to see how football is dying.

All you have to do is go out to a youth football field, as I did on Sunday morning, and talk to parents and coaches.

“Just four years ago, we had so many boys signing up for football, we had five teams at this fourth-grade level,” says John Herrera, a dad, software engineer and football coach of the Wheaton Rams in the Bill George Youth Football League in the western suburbs of Chicago. And from five teams of fourth-graders four years ago, what do we have now? One team. Just one.”

Out on the field, the Wheaton Rams and the Lyons Tigers were going at it, having fun. Parents and grandparents watched, sipping lattes, a few dads nervously pacing the sidelines as dads always do, willing prowess on their sons.

But what do the numbers from the hometown of the Wheaton Ice Man, the great Red Grange, tell us about football in America?

“If dropping from five teams of fourth-graders to one doesn’t tell you what’s happening, nothing will,” Herrera said. “Football is such a great game, it teaches great lessons to young men. But I’ve got a sense of dread for this game of football that I love.”

Herrera cares about the lessons the game can teach. He and other coaches are deadly serious about instilling “heads up” tackling techniques to protect the heads of their players.

“But it’s the parents,” he said. “They’re worried about the brain.”

It is all about the brain. The brains that are injured in the game, yes, but also about how the human mind works, as the American middle class withdraws from football, a cultural trend that will cut the NFL away from American virtue.

What is virtuous about brain damage? I’d prefer to watch prizefighters. At least prizefighting is honest about its violence. It doesn’t wrap itself up in mom and apple pie.

Four years ago I wrote a column saying that football was dead in this country, as dead as the Marlboro Man, though it didn’t know it yet.

Putting your kids in football would be akin to giving them cigarettes, and leave you to face the withering judgment of your friends and neighbors.

I was hated for it, accused of wussifying American boys. Some even called me a liberal. Now though, years later, the water is warm and others have jumped in, as the feeding frenzy around the NFL becomes undeniable.

Without that feeder system to provide fresh meat and fresh brains for the NFL meat grinder, the NFL as we know it is doomed.

There is still enough talent and size to fill the ranks. And gambling drives the game along. But without its connection to the middle class, the NFL loses what it can’t afford to lose: market share.

You really think the NFL is worried about young athletes? If so, they’d have changed the rules years ago, abandoning face masks, enlarging the ball to make it difficult to throw, switching to one-platoon football.

But they’re not worried about players. They’re worried about their money.

Parents read the news, they know about concussions and CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. While a recent study wasn’t random — brains were donated by concerned families — the analysis by Boston University showed that of 111 brains from NFL players, 110 suffered CTE, a condition that causes depression, psychosis, dementia, memory loss and death.

And what does science tell us?

It’s not the concussions that are killing football. Every sport has danger in it, and concussions can happen in basketball, soccer, perhaps even badminton, for all I know.
And as a soccer dad with two sons playing in college, I’ve spent my share of nights in emergency rooms. Concussions happen when brave athletes collide, and mostly it’s the brave ones who get hurt.

There has been a pathetic and desperate spin by football to lump soccer and other contact sports into the discussion to save itself. But it can’t. Because what makes football different from the others is the design of the game — sending bodies crashing in high-speed, high-impact collisions. It is what makes it awesome and dangerous and fun to play.

Heads get in the way. And football provides not only concussions, but by design, multiple hits to the head. There is no getting around this.

“Sure I’m concerned,” said one of the moms at the game, a lawyer who is no stranger to courtroom debates about liability. “But he loves the game so much. We haven’t made a decision as to how long he’ll play. At this level, they’re just learning, they’re not big enough to hurt each other. Later? I’m thinking about it.”

Parents of youth football players are already feeling pressure and social stigma.
“It’s not like smoking, yet,” said one dad. “But it’s getting there.”
It’s already there, Dad. It’s there.

It’s really great seeing how we still have people in “show business” who love America. The NFL, on the other hand, is falling fast because of this anti-Americanism. People are pushing back against these spoiled rich ball tossers, but the only way this garbage will stop for good is when the NFL grows enough guts to say “we are done catering to the far left wing and their anti-Americanism” and starts hitting these thugs where it hurts, their pocketbooks and bank accounts.

“You don’t stand, you don’t get paid.” It’s simple. Just like the NFL doesn’t let its employees wear, or display, certain unapproved things during games, they can tell them to stand the hell up for our national anthem and stop disrespecting our great nation and everything she, and us, stand for and hold dear.

Please share if you agree the NFL needs to be boycotted until they start fining their employees who decide to disrespect our nation!

Al ran for the California State Assembly in his home district in 2010 and garnered more votes than any other Republican since 1984. He’s worked on multiple political campaigns and was communications director for the Ron Nehring for California Lt. Governor campaign during the primaries in 2014. He has also held multiple positions within his local Republican Central Committee including Secretary, and Vice President of his local California Republican Assembly chapter. While also being an ongoing delegate to the California Republican Party for almost a decade.

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.